These thoughts are about decision making for our family-what works for someone else may be different. Many home educators have talked through curricular materials with me, generally, probably mostly, I haven't followed their choices but the discussion process has been invaluable in deciding about what would and what wouldn't work.
We decided, early in our thinking, to go for a formal approach. I loved Sharon's post about unschooling but I didn't have the confidence to go down this route as a new starter with a child just out of school. We have become more relaxed in someways as time has gone on but still have quite a formal approach.
These were the principles that we used
Christian worldview
I don't mean for a moment that we only use Christian books. We aim to teach our children from a Christian point of view and part of that is to treat the things of God with respect. I remember sitting in school, playing, with words. Not a problem if the sentence is "The cat sat on the mat" but it could easily become irreverent with a sentence about spiritual things. I don't have a problem with copying out the Bible but having some children who don't enjoy handwriting practice, I would prefer that they don't link the Bible with this!
We use Christian books for subjects which are usually taught from an atheistic point of view such as science, geography and history. We use a mix of books in history so that we can show that people do have different points of view-we are about the cover the English Civil War and want to explore the reasons for people choosing to be Cavaliers or Roundheads.
We are English
No disrespect to Americans! Our history interlinks but is different. Our spelling is different. Phonics are different-I completely missed a riddle as we pronounce "ant" and "aunt" distinctly. Word usage is different just think of the way that the verb "to visit" is used on different sides of the Pond.
We hope that our children will take UK exams, so do keep an eye on the National Curriculum.
Books had to look familiar
This was only an issue as we took a child out of school but did influence our choice of handwriting book and mental maths.
Cost
A minor issue-if the curriculum is right we hold that education is important and we should be prepared to sacrifice for it. Having said that, we don't have an issue with second hand books providing they are the current edition. After all, that is what children get in school! We found that buying books from publishers outside the UK is significantly more expensive and so decided it should only be done for a good reason.
Home educator friendly
Whilst many/most of our books aren't written specifically for home educators, it is helpful not to have to buy the rights to 30 copies. I don't know anyone with 30 children. More important, activities and experiments can use difficult to obtain and expensive equipment,if designed for schools.
Helpful teachers' manuals
I don't bother with teachers' manuals for some subjects. I quite enjoy working out the maths and think that it is useful to check that I can do this. However, manuals can be helpful. The availability of a through teachers' manual and online resources was a determining factor in deciding about a Latin curriculum. My Latin is distinctly rusty and I need all the help that I can get!
I was going to write about what we actually use but that would make this post far too long!
I would be quite interested in hearing about what you actually use. Perhaps you could write about that in a future post!
ReplyDeleteI am being negligent in posting here.Time! Time! Just not enough of it. But we'd have quite a few differences maybe from you, so it would be useful for me to give a bit of a run-down too.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with the writing out of the Bible - for those in particular who dislike writing.
We use almost all American materials.... and the 'ant' and 'aunt' thing doesn't work with *our* accent. We say them the same way!
Really will try and get my thought together to write something
Anne-it would be great to hear about your choices. The great thing about home ed is that we can choose what is right for our family and can be so different even between families who have very similar fundamental beliefs.
ReplyDeleteFunny that your accent is closer to a US accent than our London one.
This was interesting, thanks for posting. It's good to know what works for different families and how you decide what works for you.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get the ant & aunt thing, I pronouce them the same - so wasn't sure do americans pronounce them the same or different to get the riddle. Interesting though.
We did follow a phonics program, on the whole it wasn't a problem. In a way it was easier for us, as we didn't have to learn to say "ov" for "of" for example as we just say "of".
Thanks for posting, will be interesting to read what you use in a future post.
Dawn x
Dawn-ant/aunt thing is fascinating. We pronounce them differently. My phonics are wobbly but anyway, here goes! Ant with a short a as in apple and aunt with the "au" as a diphthong making the sound "are". Having said that I've just looked up the sound of "au" and the example used is "haul" which we would say as "hool".
ReplyDeleteI'm confused!
I think I sounded more anti-American than I intended. We use American books for some subjects-science and geography in particular-but it is for specific reasons. I hope to post about this in the future.